PLG Young Artists
Purcell Room, London
5th January 2004


Evening Standard
Reviewed by Nick Kimberley
6 January 2004

...No such a problem with accordionist Milos Milivojevic, born in Serbia and, like his fellow performers, a student in London. For a start, he needed no score, not even for Anthony Gilbert's Rose Luisante receiving its world premiere. Like an organ improvisation, this juxtaposed long, slow chords with fast filigrees which almost danced.
It was clearly a thorough technical workout, which Milivojevic made sound easeful and natural. He laid out Howard Skempton's enigmatically simple Twin Set and Pearls with calm impassivity, while Luciano Berio's Sequenza 13, whit its fluttering tremors and wheezy groans, might have converted the most ardent accordionophobe.


The Times online
7 January 2004
Reviewed by Hilary Finch

This year’s week-long voyage into the unknown began with an immediate and thrilling sighting: a 19-year’s old Serbian accordion player called Milos Milivojevic, playing four outstanding and virtuoso new works for the instrument - and all from memory.
Even the classical accordion, the Rolls Royce of squeeze-boxes, carries within it both the compressed, manic energies and the melancholy of the world’s popular music’s, its tangos and its secret tendresses.
Luciano Berio in 1995 packed it all into his Sequenza No13.
And scarcely eight months after the composer’s death, it was moving to hear the work’s UK premiere at last, its shuddering and fluttering chords, its dramatically inflected timbres and its subtle oscillations of breath and reverberation minutely controlled by Milivojevic.
Anthony Gilbert’s Rose Luisante for solo classical accordion, written just last year, received its world premiere from Milivojevic, as a Park Lane Group commission.
The inspiration here is purely and seductively visual: Gilbert’s responses to the light diffusion and the intricate form or the western Rose Window of Bayeux Cathedral have natural a ten-minute piece of beguiling beauty, its slowly refracting harmonies sensuous, its variations an a curling chant haunted by Eastern modes and spectral, toccata-like dances.
The Twin Set and Pearls belonged to Howard Skempton: seven tiny, disarmingly
simple variation miniatures. And Milivojevic ended the evening with Magnus Lindberg’s magnificent Jeux D’anches: wind through the reeds, as it were, growing to a hurricane of imaginative invention.


The Guardian
January 7, 2004
Reviewed by Erica Jeal

However, the highlights came from a perhaps unexpected source: the young Serbian accordionist Milos Milivojevic. Berio's Sequenza No 13 - its first UK performance - and Lindberg's frenzied Jeux D’anches showed him to be a serious and fearless virtuoso. But it had been in Anthony Gilbert's new Rose Luisante, inspired by a window in Bayeux Cathedral and drawing on the accordion's associations with French music and the organ, that we had been first introduced to the intensity, color and even sensuality of Milivojevic's playing. Judging by the speed with which Gilbert bounded on to the
platform to shake his hand afterwards, he was a very happy composer.


Independent
08 January 2004
Reviewed by Keith Potter

Yet it is the accordionist - perhaps surprisingly, but not for the first time in my experiences of the PLG bonanza - who steals the show. The 19-year-old Milos Milivojevic is a very serious Serb indeed; he doesn't smile once, even after capping his contributions with a searing account of Magnus Lindberg's Jeux D’anches. But, playing everything from memory, he demonstrates not merely that this squeeze-box is capable of passion and power, but all the drama and nuance you'd hope for in a performer on a more promising instrument.
The contrasting challenges of Berio's Sequenza No 13 and Skempton's Twin Set and Pearls are met by Milivojevic with equal focus, drawing you irresistibly into the music's centre. And in Anthony Gilbert's new Rose Luisante he appears to penetrate straight to the heart of the music's soul. While there are always some composers in these PLG recitals whom one scarcely hears elsewhere these days, Gilbert's piece movingly proves this can sometimes be a shame.


The Daily Telegraph
8 January 2004
Reviewed by Ivan Hewett

But the most impressive performer was the Serbian accordion player Milos Milivojevic.
He caught the affectionate and wry folkiness of Berio’s Sequenza No. 13 and the deadpan with of Howard Skempton’s Twin Set and Pearls with equal aplomb, and projected both pieces with an extraordinary intensity.


MUSICALPOINTERS
Reviewed by © Peter Grahame Woolf

Gordon & Rautio shared the platform with Milos Milivojevic, a gifted young virtuoso on the bayan (classical accordion - the one with buttons and no piano keys). In recent years this wondrous machine has really come into its own and into mainstream contemporary composition; accordion playing standards are disconcertingly high. Fascinating to watch, the arrangement of the notes is as bizarre and inscrutable as those of the cimbalom. Milivojevic had a real coup for PLG in bringing us the belated UK premiere of Berio's Sequenza of 1995 and he capped this with Magnus Lindberg's Jeux D’anches which had made him feel he was 'composing for an orchestra of wind instruments'. No doubt these will find their way onto a Milivojevic CD before long - or, better, a DVD; the accordion is a supremely visual instrument.



Park Lane Group Young Artists Concerts
5-9 January
(Richard Whitehouse’s report 5 & 8 January 2004)

Reviewed by: Richard Whitehouse
© Classicalsource

Although accordionists are not new to PLG recitals, the sheer bravura with which Milos Milivojevic dispatched his varied sequence suggested that the instrument has come of age as a vehicle for creative expression. He brought out the steely modal dissonance of Anthony Gilbert’s Rose Luisante (inspired by Bayeux Cathedral), and brought keen insight to Luciano Berio’s far-reaching synthesis of accordion idioms in Sequenza XIII surprisingly receiving its UK premiere after eight years. An accordionist himself, Howard Skempton has amassed a fair repertoire, with Twin Set and Pearls a set of deceptively genial vignettes typical of his music as a whole. Magnus Lindberg’s Jeux D’anches was an ostensibly tougher proposition, but Milivojevic clearly relished its utilising of every aspect of accordion technique in a study which provoked and entertained in equal measure.


Geoffrey Norris reviews the Oxford Chamber Music Festival at Holywell Music Room, 01/07/2004
Melancholy and mystery

But there were two other young musicians of note here, clarinettist Dmitri Rasul-Kareyev and accordion-player Milos Milivojevic. They came together for the world première of Elena Firsova's Invocation, a festival commission.
Whereas Sofia Gubaidulina's In Croce, performed last week, contrasted the accordion with the cello, Firsova chooses complementary reedy timbres for Invocation. This is a short, atmospheric piece, in which the clarinet's soaring, leaping, pleading lines, touched with both melancholy and fancy, seem to describe some mythological scenario such as you might imagine in a latter-day version of Debussy's Syrinx for flute. The background of eerie clusters on the accordion enhances the aura of mystery in music that, over and above testing the clarinetist’s virtuosity, has a haunting expressive purpose.

Cheltenham International Festival of Music
Reviewed by: Roger Jones, 8th July 2004

This brilliant young musician from Serbia produced some amazing sounds from his accordion at a fascinating afternoon recital of contemporary music. As Milos Milivojevic performed it seemed as if a whole orchestra of wind instruments had invaded Cheltenham's medieval parish church. Anthony Gilbert's Rose Luisante reflected the glowing rhythms and textures of the west window of Bayeux Cathedral.Berio’s introverted Sequenza No. 13 used each instrument to the full while
Lindberg's Jeux D'anches developed into a glittering cascade of sound.
Howard Skempton's Twin Set and Pearls offered a melodious contrast. As an encore, Milivojevic played Ole Schmidt's Flight Meatball over the Fence. It was a bouncy and amusing piece on which to end this enjoyable concert.


A Taste of talent to come

Review from Wigmore Hall Concert with Royal String Quartet
Geoffrey Norris, The Daily Telegraph 21st Jun 2005

…The Royal equally evoked the contrasting moods in the three of Piazzolla’s Five Tango Sensations, offsetting and coalescing with the seductively reedy accordion of Milos Milivojevic…



19. BUDVA GRAD TEATAR 2005

Harmonikaš Miloš Milivojević u crkvi Santa Marija. 9. avgust 2005.

Mađijska elegancija

Zorica Kojić, "Danas"


Sićušni i elegantan dvadesetjednogodišnjak, sa besprekorno začešljanom frizurom unatrag, mogao bi - gledajući ga pred njegov koncert u crkvici Santa Marija pod budvanskom Citadelom - da iskorači iz kakvog kultnog "noire" francuskog filma, sa svom zračećom samosvešću, sasvim podudarnom onoj što je emaniraju heroji šeste decenije i sva ostala legendarna šou-biz polubožanstva mitskog XX veka. U zbilji, njegovo ime je Miloš Milivojević, a to od časa kada kroči na koncertnu Grad teatar scenu, odistinski više ne biste smeli zaboraviti, ako vam je ikako stalo do sopstvenog slušalačkog dostojanstva. Jer, Miloš Milivojević, sa svojom neverovatnom harmonikom u rukama, vlasnik je ovog leta valjda najuzbudljivije solo artističke predstave, koja se jednostavno ne može samo svesti na okvire seriozne gole prakse - iako je dabome umetnički posve neoskvrnuta - zato što upravo eksplozivno spaja opaku žestinu pravovernih "rock’a’billy" demonskih heroja 50-ih (a tome utisku Milivojevićeva frizura i besprekorna crna odežda samo pomažu) sa neobuzdanim ispravnim osećanjem za ono temeljno pustolovno u takozvanoj "ozbiljnoj" muzici.
Svirajući svoj jednočasovni resital, sa delima Gilberta, Skarlatija, Berioa, Božanića i Lindberga redom, Miloš Milivojević srčano ukršta decentnu drevnost Domenika Skarlatija sa najmodernijim izrazom poreklom iz sadašnjeg trenutka pobrojanih ostalih autora, čijih je dela najčešće i premijerni svetski interpretator. Sudarajući sa aristokratskom senzibilnošću svoju mađijsku eleganciju u proučavanju i glasnom tumačenju izabranih punktova svog repertoara, sa jednom razornom ali dakako konstruktivnom pank energijom, spektakularni virtuoz Milivojević atrakcija je koja vraća veru u "klasične" koncertne dvorane. I sve ostale, bez šale. Veoma opojno i električno. Pet zvezdica zauvek.



Musical Pointers
Reviewed by © Peter Grahame Woolf

Review from the Accordion Showcase concert at the Royal Academy of Music
David Josefowitz Recital Hall 13 February 2006

…Bozanic's piece displayed special effects on flute and accordion (screeching, tapping, glissandi) - prolonged excessively towards the end of his Fragments……a welcome reminder of what two accordions can produce was given by two of the accomplished soloists in Piazzolla’s Adios Nonino…



Britten-Pears Orchestra / Knussen
Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh

Tom Service
Monday June 26, 2006
The Guardian

...The BPO's best playing came in their accompaniments to the vocal works: Berg's voluptuous aria Der Wein and Dutilleux's magnificent recent song cycle, Correspondances. Soprano Barbara Hannigan captured the seedy ecstasy of Berg's hymn to the magical effects of wine, above all in the central section, a vision of two intoxicated lovers reaching new heights of passion.But it was her performance of the Dutilleux that really impressed. This delicate, passionate music sets letters by Van Gogh, Rilke, Solzhenitsyn and a poem by Prithwindra Mukherjee. Knussen created a flickering orchestral texture from the BPO players in the first song, dramatising the mystical flames of Mukherjee's poem, and a lonely accordion characterised the sense of loss and sorrow in Solzhenitsyn's letter to Mstislav and Galina Rostropovich...


9th May 2007
Norfolk & Norwich Festival
1.00pm Assembly House

Oldak Quartet and Accordion

Reviewed by Christopher Smith
Eastern Daily Press
May 10, 2007

For three movements from the Five Tango Sensations by the Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla the accordionist Milos Milivojevic joined the quartet. His instrument added its special sound and character to the strings, and the fugal finale came off particularly well.

Derek Butler Prize, Wigmore Hall, London
Reviewed by Michael Church, Independent
Thursday, 27 March 2008

Classical music has always benefited from the largesse of those who have made their money in non-musical ways, but for young musicians, such sources are now more crucial than ever. The late Derek Butler, who made his fortune manufacturing Nigerian headdresses, is posthumously supporting a huge array of ventures, including the musical prize that bears his name. Now in its second year, it goes to the best postgrad candidate fielded by London's four conservatoires, with a Wigmore Hall concert as the play-off.

If one of this year's four has some way to go, the other three, on the basis of these performances, should each make a debut disc forthwith. The 24-year-old Alissa Tavdidishvili Turgeneva hails from that cradle of great pianism, Tbilisi, and she produced a muscular cantabile in the old Soviet style. But by applying it in turn to works by Scarlatti, Chopin, Rachmaninov, and Scriabin, her strange achievement was to make them all inhabit the same sound-world, a limitation she must urgently address.

No praise can be too high, however, for the American cellist Bartholomew LaFollette, the Russian violinist Dunja Lavrova, and the extraordinary Serbian accordionist Milos Milivojevic, who finally scooped the pool.

LaFollette opened with pellucid Fauré, followed by a toweringly authoritative unaccompanied Bach prelude. His rendering of Tchaikovsky's Pezzo capriccioso moved from a quintessentially Russian expressiveness to an assured virtuosity few top-flight cellists could have matched.

Lavrova opened with a much-played Brahms movement whose Romanticism demands power and control – the very qualities she brought to it. Her second piece was a pseudo-baroque pastiche by Huw Watkins, and her last was Ravel's Tzigane, in which she proved herself on a level with the great fiddlers of the past.

But Milivojevic's artistry on the humble button accordion took the breath away – indeed, his coruscating transcription of an organ chorale by Mendelssohn made one almost wonder whether we actually need those thundering giants. I'd put money on this brilliant young performer opening a whole range of new musical worlds.